An Open Question to Atheists and Agnostics

I have been reading Tim Keller’s New York Times bestselling book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. So far it’s a fascinating read. I just finished the chapter on the knowledge of God. The thesis of that chapter is we all have an innate knowledge of God’s existence, yet we tend to suppress this truth. This is not a new argument in the realm of Christian apologetics. Keller offers as evidence for this innate knowledge of God within us all our sense of morality. In our current 21st century Western civilization, the concept of morality as largely relative is fairly widespread, yet we make moral judgments all the time. The classic case in point is the Nazi holocaust. I feel fairly confident in saying that no one has a problem calling what the Nazis did to the Jews during WWII was evil.

To that end, I would like to ask an open question to all self-proclaimed atheists and agnostics (by atheists, I am referring to people who positively state there is no God; and by agnostics, I am referring to people who claim there might be a God, but we can not know him), and the question is this:

If there is no God, then upon what do you base your morality?

In other words, what serves as the foundation for your judgments in saying this is right and that is wrong?

If you wish to weigh in with your answer, please follow these simple guidelines:

Please be civil, I am not trying to start a “flame” war. I am sincerely reaching out to people who believe differently than I do and seeking to understand how they answer this question

I don’t define it, I look to the medical/scientific definitions. Primarily bodily harm. It gets a bit murkier when we deal with things like psychological harm, and even more so when we get to emotional harm. Which is why I said such things are up to a certain amount of debate.

And we look at things both in specifics and the broader picture. As I said, it’s situational. If I find $50 on the ground and keep it, that is not an immoral act. (Probably amoral, as opposed to moral.) But if I take $50 from someone else, I’ve caused harm, so now it’s immoral, even though the result for me is the same.

My feelings can be summed up thusly:

Avoid harm, to yourself and others, at all costs. Where harm is unavoidable, work to make as little harm and as much benefit as possible.

By acknowledge what seems to be the fact…that morality isn’t innate in humans.

What is innate (or virtually so) are two particular traits. One is universal to life as far as we can tell, and the other seems unique to mammals. Those traits would be the desire for survival and empathy.

As a result of those things, most people (and mammals for that matter) are pretty universal in that they want to go on living as long as they can, and they want the people they care about (for whatever reason) to do so as well. Tribalism and xenophobia, which we and other animals have in spades, results in a severe limitation on who we view as ‘people we care about’. Which is what helps lead to atrocities like genocide.

I view myself as a human first. So I consider everyone as part of my tribe, and want to work for the general benefit of all. If you (the general ‘you’) view your tribe as just the people of your religion, your country and your ethnic group, it’s no surprise that you can justify acting horribly to those outside your tribe, as long as you determine that it would benefit your own.

As science shows us that there are less differences between the races than there are between the genders, I see no reason to limit my view of my own tribe so much.

What is innate (or virtually so) are two particular traits. One is universal to life as far as we can tell, and the other seems unique to mammals. Those traits would be the desire for survival and empathy.

I would agree with this statement for the most part (though I think we would disagree as to why they’re universal 😉 )

As science shows us that there are less differences between the races than there are between the genders, I see no reason to limit my view of my own tribe so much.

Another sentiment with which I would agree.

However, I need some clarification for this statement:

By acknowledge what seems to be the fact…that morality isn’t innate in humans.

Are you saying that we all don’t share the same ‘morality’, or that we’re generally not innately moral creatures? I guess this statement, on the face, doesn’t seem obvious to me.

“Are you saying that we all don’t share the same ‘morality’, or that we’re generally not innately moral creatures?”

I’m saying that, while we have some innate traits that could lend themselves to the creation of what we call morality, any kind of morality itself is not innate. It’s a learned process. Humans figure it out. Some do so completely from scratch, others adopt codes that others have figured out in earlier times, and some do a combination of both.

No matter what the moral code you subscribe to is, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that no one adheres to it completely without it being discovered or taught to them. Therefore, it isn’t innate by definition.

An interesting thought experiment:

Tomorrow, everyone in the world wakes up with amnesia. They remember basic skills, but have no memory of who they were or what they have been taught their whole lives. How many of those people would, innately, view shaving their beards as an immoral act? (To use one extreme example.)

They might, however, view killing someone else for no reason as an immoral act because they innately want to survive and innately have empathy.

Those two traits can lead to a lot of what we consider moral. But there’s plenty that religions view as immoral that can’t be reached that way.

When you say “any kind of morality itself is not innate”, are you referring to the particulars of morality (e.g., “don’t eat pork”, “don’t expose your knees”, etc.)?

You said at one point “Some [humans] do so [develop morality] from scratch”, yet at another point you said, “Therefore, it [morality] isn’t innate by definition.” I’m having trouble reconciling these two statements. How do you develop something from scratch without it being innate? Even you example from the thought experiment seems to suggest that people can develop the moral conviction that senseless killing is “an immoral act because they innately want to survive and innately have empathy.” That would seem to negate your earlier statement that “morality isn’t innate by definition.”

By the way, this will probably be my last comment for the evening, but I wanted to respond to some of what you wrote. Thank you again for taking the time to engage in dialogue with me; I am enjoying the discussion.

First, can you flesh out a little bit what you mean by “social instinct?”

Second, you wrote:

Humans work out details (mores) as a matter of building culture.

It sounds like you’re saying that morality is a matter of cultural convention. In other words, as a culture or society develops, it works out it mores as a result. Is that a fair summation of your point? If so, it almost sounds like you’re saying morality is utilitarian or pragmatic. Bottom line, doesn’t that make morality relative? Because society can deem something moral today and then tomorrow it can be immoral. How would you respond to that?